Amorim oversaw a 4-1 thrashing of City by Sporting last month
Amorim oversaw a 4-1 thrashing of City by Sporting last month
Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim never discussed the possibility of replacing Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.
Amorim was the frontrunner to take over from Guardiola before he signed a new two-year contract with the Premier League champions, who have hired Amorim's former colleague Hugo Viana as their new sporting director for when Txiki Begiristain departs in the summer.
Viana worked with Amorim at Sporting and the pair are close personally and professionally. United chief executive Omar Berrada convinced Amorim to join the club following the sacking of Erik ten Hag amid interest from City.
City denied they ever considered Amorim as a contender to succeed Guardiola and Amorim confirmed he received no contact from United's neighbours before Guardiola signed his extension three weeks ago.
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"Never. Never heard from them and this was my only option," he said. "When Manchester United talked to me I had no doubts. I had already something in my mind that could be a possibility. With Manchester City or Viana? Nothing about that."
Guardiola is enduring the worst period of his 16-and-a-half year coaching career after City lost 2-0 to Juventus in the Champions League on Wednesday night. City have won one of their past ten matches, losing seven, with one of those reverses coming against Sporting in Amorim's penultimate match in charge last month.
United have lost their last two league matches and have not suffered three successive league losses since December 2015. They came from behind to beat Viktoria Plzen in the Europa League on Thursday evening but head into a Manchester derby in their lowest league position - 13th - since 2007.
Although City's apparent decline is cause for optimism, Amorim disputed the suggestion it was a "weaker" City and reiterated United had plenty of issues of their own to address.
"No, no, no, no," Amorim stressed. "The great teams can respond in any moment and I think they are in a better place than us in type of understanding the game, the way they play, the confidence they have. Even in these kind of moments, we have a lot to focus on in our team.
"Of course we have a strategy to try to win the game with the strategy like it should be. But we are focused just on our team.
"We will face a great opponent and I’m more focused on our problem. So we have a lot of issues here. So I’m more focused on what we should do on Sunday to win the game. So I’m really focused on my team."
Amorim coached Sporting in 11 Lisbon derbies against Benfica, enjoying victory on five occasions. The significance of the Manchester derby in the league has subsided over the past decade amid United's rut, but the FA Cup final triumph in May salvaged their worst league campaign in 34 years and ensured Ten Hag avoided the sack.
With Guardiola committed to staying in Manchester until 2027, Amorim is itching to experience a derby with the title at stake. "I’m really focused on the details, I just want to improve the team so I cannot treat it like a normal derby. It should be like two great teams fighting for the title and it is not that in this moment.
"So it is just one more game with a very good opponent. Both teams are struggling in the moment so I hope in future I can feel that real feeling of a derby.
"But my goal now is to improve the team and win games. And we’ll try to win this game."